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Monday, October 31, 2011

This is a panel that my son picked out 2 years ago. We got the border put on together, and there it sat. I did not really know how to go about quilting the panel because I did not want to quilt over the faces. I gave it to my friend Tammy and she did outline quilting. Why didn't I think of that?! She also did some great quilting of pumpkins in the border.

I hope you all have a great Halloween! I am off to get some trick and treaters ready.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

For the festival, I am showing a quilt that I finished in June after having it quilted by my friend Tammy, but never displayed. It is called Fresh. I made it using five charm square packs of Fresh by Deb Strain. When I first got them, I wanted to make a charm square quilt but then thought perhaps it was too simple and wasted a lot of time thinking of other possibilities before deciding on what I was originally going to do. This quilt is important to me for a few reasons. It reminded me that KISS does work (Keep It Simple, Sewer) and that I should trust my gut. I have learned to believe in myself and create what make me happy. That happiness is a gift which I can give on to other people. I made a quilt for my nephew this year, which I really liked but I was unsure if my sister-in-law would. I was thrilled when she sent me pictures a few days ago of my nephew playing on the quilt. It means a lot to me.

The quilt is also one of the first that I did a pieced backing for. I really like it. The white fabric was going to be a border but I decided I liked the squares on their own. I like having it in one piece on the back. Thank you Amy for hosting this Quilt Festival. Check out what others have done!

Monday, October 17, 2011

I thought long and hard about having quilts done for Christmas. With one of them being so close to done, I decided to push on and get my nephew's done too. Next year is my guild's quilt show and pretty soon I have to start working on quilts for that. At least for those quilts, I do have all the fabric and the pattern picked out. I was not happy with my nephew's quilt, even though I tried a couple of different ways to make it. I realized that I need a lighter blue to make it better, which I found in my stash. Luckily for me too, I had at least a hundred of the most versatile blocks known to quilter's ; the half square triangle. I have decided to a zigzag quilt and the lighter blue will definitely add something to it, once I have those triangles done. For me the longest part of quilting is deciding on fabric and design. Once that is done, it is sew, sew, sew much easier. :-) Check out what others have created for Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Saturday, October 8, 2011

My September UFO is finished and off to the quilter. It was not actually
the number pulled for September but since I may want to give it at
Christmas time I needed to get it done. As always, I really like it. It
is good if you like the stuff you make right?! It is for my niece and at
first I was unsure of the black but I think the bold brightness suits
her personality. I am trying to decide now whether I will be able to get
my nephew's done in time for Christmas. I think if I set everything
else aside I can and if I get my rhythm going with it. It is another one I am
not sure about, but probably once all the blocks are together I will like it too. Check out
others who got their UFO's finished at Judy's Patchwork Times.

Friday, October 7, 2011

I have done something that I have never done before. I bought a whole fat quarter bundle collection. 40 fat quarters in all. It was a bit of a nerve wracking decision to make. I had made my Dad a quilt using Miss Jump's Scrapbag by Linda Brannock for Moda and I really liked the fabrics. Browsing through Etsy I found someone selling a fat quarter bundle of it for a great deal. I was so excited when they came that I took pictures of every moment.

The packages eagerly awaiting me to open them.

The fat quarters so nicely packaged and organzied.

Stacked and ready for action!

I definitely have one quilt pattern in mind for these fabrics. It will be exciting to see what else I come up with to make with them. The purchase was definitely worth it!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

I have been picking away at my UFO's and started on my UFO for October.

I have done a few more of my mountains. Only 18 more blocks to make. I would definitely love to see this together by winter.

I kept changing my mind about my Tulip UFO which is my UFO for October. I was not happy with my original design, and so I found a different one that used smaller 4 patches. Part of my problem was that I had bought charm packs, and the edges were pinked and the squares were smaller than 5 inches, which made them too small for some of the patterns I was looking at. Finally I decided on a third pattern, ironically Plan C by Carrie Nelson from her Schnibbles Times Two book. It calls for even smaller 4 patches, so everything is much better now. The original idea was to make a lap quilt for myself, but now I like the idea much better of making it into a wall quilt.

A new project I started was working on some circles with my leftover 5 inch squares from some quilts I made. I have never made circles before and it is going better than I thought. I have tried pinning, and not pinning and I have found that the not pinning works better for me. I do need to get some tweezers to help me at the end. I am using Elisa's Back Porch Designs circle templates. She has some good tutorials on her website, and I have found how to cut the circle templates to be very helpful.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Yesterday, my daughter came to me and asked me if she could take down my blocks on my design wall, so she could create her own design wall. I said yes, and asked her not to lose the quilt pieces. Originally, I thought she was going to use my blocks to create a new design but instead she had picked out her own fabric to use. As fabric is want to do, some of it has migrated to my basement.

Here is her design, entitled La Maison.I am always amazed at her creativity.